After 29 days at sea, Ben Gray and his two sons reached Australia on Feb. 12.
The northern Alberta bison producer is attempting to sail around the world in a 57 foot boat called the Idlewild. He left Dunvegan, Alta., on May 24, making his way north on a network of rivers and lakes to the Arctic Ocean. After sailing west to the Bering Strait, the crew turned east again and navigated the Northwest Passage to the Atlantic Ocean, arriving in South Africa in late December.
Gray and his sons left South Africa for Australia in mid-January and set a record for the longest passage by a trawler yacht: 29 days and six hours.
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It’s not uncommon for sailboats or larger freighters to travel between the two continents, but it is rare for small boats to do so because of the difficulty involved in carrying enough fuel and the possibility of storms at sea. Unlike previous legs of the Grays’ journey in the Arctic and Atlantic, the Indian Ocean between South Africa and Australia was relatively calm.
“Nobody has ever tried to make this long of a crossing before,” said Gray by cell phone last week near Perth in Western Australia.
Gray and his sons, Kevin and Brad, were worried about fuel even before leaving South Africa. Originally they planned to travel farther south and use their sail to conserve some of the 3,700 litres of fuel they are able to carry on board. Fuel consumption changes dramatically depending on the boat’s speed and the wind and current.
The Grays’ plans changed when a motor mount broke 300 kilometres from Cape Town and they were forced to return to land. Once back in South Africa they bought 50 jerry cans plus several 205 litre drums to carry an additional 1,400 litres of fuel, which allowed them to take a more northerly and warmer route. They had 1,500 litres of fuel left when they arrived in Australia.
“It would have been far too close not to have taken extra fuel on the route we had taken,” said Gray, who reported wind on the stern for only three of the 30 days at sea.
When they neared the coast of Australia they saw a ship 23 km ahead on radar. It was the first ship they had seen for 20 days and 5,584 km.
“You pretty much got the world to yourself out there,” Gray said.
Since leaving Dunvegan, the Grays have traveled 37,370 km.
The crew was kept busy during the Indian Ocean leg of the voyage. One person had to be on shift at all times watching for other ships and making sure everything was working properly. When the ocean was smooth enough, Gray said, someone had to cook and clean up.
“When it’s smooth you can read, when it’s rough you can’t. We have plenty of books and we all enjoy that. There’s e-mails to send and equipment to repair. It’s surprising how busy a person keeps.”
They saw dolphins and fish, but not as much sea life as they encountered in the Atlantic and Arctic oceans. They were rarely without the company of albatross during the crossing.
“A large portion of the time we had calm seas and we hadn’t experienced that prior to that trip and we quite enjoyed it. We lucked out and it really made the trip enjoyable.”
While in South Africa they hired a weather service used by pleasure craft and race boats to help navigate the best ocean passages and warn of upcoming storms and cyclones, which are not uncommon in the seas between Africa and Japan. The southern seas have their own peculiarities with different currents and winds that make navigation more challenging.
“They have an excellent source of information,” said Gray, who doesn’t have the same instruments on his small boat to obtain a large weather picture.
“With our weather people, we don’t feel we’ll be at a lot of risk.”
Stabilizers will be added to the boat while it is in Australia. Family members from Canada will visit for two weeks before the journey resumes.
After their family leave, Gray and his sons will travel 3,200 km northwest to Darwin on Australia’s north coast. They plan to leave Darwin April 5 for the trip north to Japan through Indonesia, Palau and Guam.
They hope to leave Tokyo June 5 for Attu and intersect their earlier route near Little Diomede Island in the Bering Strait and be back in Canada by fall.
